Forget Me Not
by chuckles93
Summary: Eric's living the high life, riding waves, beautiful woman, fame and fortune all around the globe, while Amy's left behind remembering the boy that used to be her everything, and the secret that could have his life come shattering down around him.
1. Amy, One

**My first story on here in a few years, I just saw Ryan Corr on the rafters and I was inspired to watch my season two box set of BWH which in turn inspired me to write this. I'm not sure if people will read this but I just needed to get my ideas out of my head haha, hope you enjoy, Kaia (:**

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><p>He left four years ago. He had left 'us' four years ago but at the time he thought he was just leaving me. I was so happy for him, truly I was. He never thought he had it in him to win, a small town sixteen year old getting a place at Blue Water High was literally the stuff dreams were made of and when he won the wild card spot on the pro circuit tour with Brooke, his eyes literally shone with opportunity. He wanted us to get back together; he asked while I was dancing with him, reminding me that the deal was to reassess whatever it was that we had between us after the competition was finished. "<em>You're going to Rio in the morning" <em>I told him, I even remember the feeling in mystomach as though I was already holding him back, I would be in Australia and he would be on the other side of the world making his mark and I would find a new job, surfing would become my hobby not my life and I would always wonder what would have been between Eric and I. We said we would stay "friends" I thought flipping through the latest pro surf magazine's that Mike had left when he had come over to visit, splayed across the front was a picture of Eric holding a surfboard and beautiful woman in bikinis who probably didn't even surf were hanging of him.

The "friend's" pack we made didn't last long and while Brooke and Rachel fell asleep downstairs with the rest of the boys including Simmo whose partying ended hours before the rest of us got really into it. I took his hand and led him up the stairs my dress still damp from when we all jumped in the pool, I closed the door to the room I shared with Brooke and Rachel and I let him put his hands on either side of the door so they were on each side of my head, inclosing me in him inches away from my face.

"Ames, I was under the impression we were just friends" he said jokingly, I could feel his hot breath below my ear and it literally gave me shivers. I placed my hand on his neck so I could feel his pulse beating below my thumb.

"Eric I-I want to give you something t-to remember me by". I stuttered the sentence out, going red and losing my composure that I usually had.

"You're not exactly going to be easy to forget." He smiled and leaned his head down closer to my lips.

"You promise you won't forget me?" I whispered back to him.

"Duh, Amy" he said jokingly stroking his thumb against my cheek. "You know I'm bad at talking about stuff like- like this" he said looking down embarrassed. "But you know I'm in love with you and I don't think I could ever let that go." After that I kissed him and he kissed me back, we climbed up onto my bed and I let him undress me and kiss me in places that before I had never let any other guy go, I let him be as close to me as I had ever let anyone go before and afterward as my head lay on his chest listening to his steady sleeping breaths I finally understood the stupid, soppy term "making love" because what I just did with him wasn't just sex, I would never think of what we did as just sex. I felt a hot, salty tear run down my cheek and onto his chest knowing that our bare bodies currently intertwined within the sheets couldn't stay like this forever and in a few hours he would have to sneak out of my room and pretend that we were just friends like everyone else thought we were back to being. Then he would be on a plane and I would never be sure about the next time Eric Tanner would be in my life.

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><p>"AMY!" I heard Rachel shout from the lounge, seemingly annoyed.<p>

"I'm in the kitchen" I shouted back.

"You could reply! I was shouting for like two minutes, I didn't want to go in any further than the lounge in case it was some sort of CSI thing, you scared me." She said, hitching Lea further up her waist. The three year olds arms outstretched towards Amy. "Do you want to go to your Mummy-Wummy?" She said in a baby voice cooing over Lea, Rachel was an extremely loving godmother; she always said she hated kids until she fell head over heels in love with Lea. I picked up my little blonde daughter with her silky hair put into pigtails by Rach.

"Thanks, how was she?"

"She was fabulous, as always" she smiled at Lea. "However her mother , who usually takes my Sunday godmother time to relax, clean up or treat herself to a manicure seems to have stayed in the same place I left her two hours ago when mike was still here visiting." She looked at me concerned and sat at the seat opposite where I was sitting at the dining room table.

"It's nothing; I'm just in a lazy mood." I smiled forcibly at my best friend. She nodded and began looking at the pile of magazines that Mike left.

"Does he have no life?" she asked, amused at his collection, she paused when she looked at the cover of the last magazine dated from a month ago.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're 'lazy' mood."She quoted lazy in the air with her hands. "Wouldn't have anything to do with a certain magazine I am holding in my hands?"

I just looked down, not bothering lying to someone who would just see through me. We were silent for a few minutes with Lea sitting on her lap picking up the magazine in question.

"He's a famous surfer if he has a picture!" exclaimed Lea to her mother. "When I'm a famous surfer, I get one too!" she said and pointed at the picture of Eric excitedly. We both looked at Lea, who had the same piercing eyes as her mother but the same sense of humour and identical smile as her father.

"All it takes is a call Amy." Rachel said to me, grabbing my hand as reassurance.

"Look at him Rach, he's living the dream, beautiful girls, huge flashy house, soon becoming surfing royalty, while I'm here in a two bedroom flat with a three year old daughter and a job as a waitress." She ran her hand along her daughter's hair." It's about four years too late for a call."


	2. Eric, Two

**Hey, dunno if anyone's reading but hope you enjoy anyway, Kaia (:**

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><p>"You fly over tonight and you will spend the weekend doing promotion and interviews and then two days leisure, you'll be staying at the Duxington Hotel for your stay and all room service and restaurant use is covered." My manager Mark kept going on to me in my living room, worried that I couldn't handle being in a different country without him.<p>

"Mark I'm from Australia, in fact I know Australia better than you so please let me go pack then check that my girlfriend is packed and you can stop worrying your pretty little face." I said with a wink to calm him before he started hyperventilating.

"Fine! Just be prompt to the airport."

"When am I ever not prompt" I replied to him and a concerned look set on his face.

"Relax buddy it's a joke." He huffed and walked out of the room as I ran my hand through my hair and walked up the huge flight of stairs to check if Carey was packed.

"Hey sugar!" She said over enthusiastically in her American accent as she bounded over my bed as if it were her own. She wrapped her arms around my neck and let her brunette hair drape around my shoulders, everybody assumed I had a thing for brunettes- I mean they were beautiful, a lot were smart and funny but my best mate Dylan noticed I never went for blondes. I couldn't.

"Hey you." I smiled sweetly and kissed her on the forehead. "You nearly packed?" She nodded as she applied more mascara to her eyelashes and giggled that it tickled her eyes. She may not be the brightest girl, but she would do, I couldn't get myself close enough to her emotionally for it to hurt if it ended, so it would work.

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><p>We had been in the country for nearly twenty- four hours and we hadn't even left the hotel room and I had promotion jobs to do the next day, I was lying in bed considering texting Mike or Corey seeing if they wanted to hang then he remembered that a few months after winning the wild card four years back they stopped contacting him and the only person he really saw from the old lot was Brooke if they were at the same mixed comps or if she was in LA she crashed at mine. "Take me out to dinner baby" Carey whispered from next to me.<p>

"I can't be bothered going out Carey." He told her reaching out to get the remote for the television.

"There's a restaurant is on the second floor here, please, it's not that far" she pleaded with him and he reluctantly agreed. "Yay! Let me get changed." She smiled and kissed him on the lips. I chucked on a pair of my fancier jeans (basically jeans that didn't have a hole in them) and then I put on my black dress shirt and waited for Carey. She finally emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later in a skimpy red dress with matching red lipstick and her hair down and blown into curls, she didn't look beautiful or pretty. "You look sexy" I said to her, she walked over a grabbed my hand as we walked out of the hotel room.

"You're not too bad yourself" she smiled.

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><p>"Sir, what will you and you're stunning guest be eating tonight?" The waiter asked, he was smiling but it had looked like he had been working for hours.<p>

"Carey would like the Chicken Carbonara and could I please have the fish and chips?" The waiter laughed. "Good man. The wait shouldn't be too long." He smiled then walked off towards the counter, I always hated restaurants they were so boring and half of the stuff on the menu was inedible, it's easier at Burger King to be yourself and eat something you actually like. About ten minutes later a woman came up behind me with our plates I couldn't see her face but she had the same generic waitress uniform.

"Here's the Carbonara ma'am, and here's the fish and chips sir we don't often get orders for that around this side of the restaurant" She smiled looked up then froze. I knew that I knew that voice but somehow my mind was telling me it couldn't be Amy was never that formal with anyone.

"Ames" I said and then I didn't know what to think I was so angry with her but seeing her just took me right back to Blue Water High that I could practically hear the waves crashing up to the shore line. She looked scared for a moment then squeaked something along the lines of "Enjoy your meal" she quickly walked back to the kitchen.

"Do you know her?" Carey asked as if Amy were an old friend, not really caring about the answer. I spent the rest of the meal unable to really eat, I just thought back to the night before I left to go to Rio. How she took me to her room and told me she wanted to give me something so I wouldn't forget her. I never forgot her but that night is permanently etched in my memories, it's why I never drink because I lose all self control and start thinking about it and her skin against mine and how I always called her after leaving Blue Water and received no reply. How I always tried to talk to the rest of the group but their numbers had either changed or they were ignoring me too. Brooke had told me they were more closed off with her like they were keeping something from her. About two years ago when I was visiting Australia I even went to Amy's parents house to see her and all I found out was they hadn't talked to her in two years then they slammed the door in my face. I got up and walked to the back of house looking around for her, I could hear Carey asking questions behind me at the table but I just kept on walking. I could hear some of the chef assistants and other waiters and waitresses say my name and look at me amazed that a pro surfer was in their kitchen. "Where's Amy?" I asked the dude that took our orders.

"She walked outside, through that door." He pointed to the left and I followed and pushed open the door and was greeted by the cool night air. I saw her standing under the little light to the left of the door across the way from the smokers. She had her arms folded across her chest and her eyes were red.

"To think I thought we were more than you telling me to 'enjoy my meal'." I said walking closer to her, suddenly angry.

"What else could I say we haven't spoken in years" she said meekly, so unlike the Amy I once knew.

"And whose fault is that?" I asked bitterly.

"Eric, you have everything you always wanted, you're living what most people only dream of." She said looking at me for the first time and we were back to being sixteen on the beach my arms around her, I had to shake it off.

"No Amy!" I shouted, I didn't mean to and we now had the attention of the smokers but I didn't care. "I don't have everything I always wanted" I said in a lower voice so no one else could hear. "Because the day I met you." I paused unsure whether to finish the sentence. "The day I met you was the day you became everything I always wanted." I couldn't stand there anymore, next to her same familiar smell, her same piercing eyes, her long blonde hair. I left her there and walked back to the kitchen door and hoped I was hearing things when I heard a distant cry.


	3. Amy, Three

**Here's chapter three, enjoy (:**

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><p>"<em>Mum, Dad I need to talk to you"<em>

"_What is it sweet heart?"_

"_I'm pregnant" _

They both thought I was joking when I told them, laughing it off as though it was just my way of getting out of going to the Uni open day. It had been nearly two months since Eric left, and three weeks since I made Rachel make a two hour drive to my house with one stop on the way... a pharmacy.

"_God, Mum I'm not joking"_

"_Yes, yes you are- we wouldn't have raised our daughter to be so stupid and careless"_

"_Turns out you did"_

The looks on their faces still kills me, though they soon became the angriest they had ever been the first emotion that crossed their face was disappointment.

"_Who did this to you?"_

"_Don't make it sound like I was forced to do it Dad!"_

"_Then answer the question"_

"_Who do you think?"_

They didn't have to ask again, I think they knew who it was all along.

"_Well how convenient, he's pissed off and left us with all this!"_

"_It's not your problem mother!" _

"_Oh, and you're going to buy clothes, pay for childcare, doctors appointments?" _

"_I don't know yet!" _

"_That's just it you don't know! You're too naive too understand the implications"_

"_I know enough to know that you'll think I'll be a shit mother"_

Mum started crying and Dad tried to calm her down, while I sat at the table feeling more like a child than I have in years, ironic really- there I was, facing the most adult thing I could ever face in my life and I felt like a child.

"_There are the two most obvious options."_

"_What?"_

"_Get rid now or get rid later"_

"_And they are my only options?" _

"_While you are under my roof, yes. Your father and I will pay for everything then you can go to university and forget this whole incident."_

"_No."_

I told them I'd move out, I screamed and shouted and packed my suitcase and called Rachel and asked her to pick me up and though it was nearly midnight she did. She offered me her brother's old bedroom and her and her parents helped me get a job so I could start to pay them back for the clothes and food they bought. I finally saved up enough for Lea and I to get a flat close to Rachel's house when she had turned two.

Every day in the back of my mind I knew I should tell him, then I would see something on the sports channel or in the paper or I would overhear Mike and Corey talking about all the amazing stuff Eric was doing when they thought I wasn't listening and I knew that I had to keep on going on.

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><p>I tried to gain my composure that I had completely lost when Eric had left at the restaurant before I stepped inside the flat; I wiped my eyes, took ten deep breaths then unlocked the door with my keys. I crept into Lea's bedroom and kissed her on the forehead "Sleep tight my beautiful princess". I snuck out of her room and headed towards the humming T.V in the lounge.<p>

"Hey, Corey thanks again for doing this, my babysitters sick, she's not a flake."

"No worries" he said continuing to watch the waves on the T.V rise and fall while surfers danced and glided their way through the water bobbing and jerking their bodies. We sat in silence for ten minutes hypnotized by the wave and what surfers were brave enough to own them and when the ad break came it felt like I had left a dream.

"I don't know if you want to know or anything Amy, but the programme was advertising that Eric Tanner would be on the show tomorrow, meaning he's in the country." He said Eric's name so clinically, like they hadn't once been inseparable friends.

I nodded "He was at the restaurant." I spoke clearly so I didn't choke on my words.

Corey just looked at me waiting for more words to come out of my mouth, when it became clear that none were coming he said the first thing that was on his mind.

"Did you tell him about Lea?"

"Nope, he was so angry Corey; I had never seen him like that. He was always the joker, but I made him so angry."

We sat in silence again the surf on T.V losing its hypnotising magic.

"I should have told him."

"You thought you were doing the right thing."

"I was so young, I still am so young and I just keep making the wrong decisions like my mother said I would."

"That doesn't mean you're not a good mother."

"Lea thinks she doesn't have a father, Eric thinks he doesn't have a daughter. What kind of mother does that make me?"

"One who cares about other people so much that she forgets about herself." He smiled and picked up his jacket. "I gotta go; Rachel wants me to help her flat search bright and early."

"Flat searching...is that what they call it these days." I said with a smirk.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He said blushing.


	4. Eric, Four

**Chapter Four, It's a bit short but i'll try make it up with the others , Kaia (:**

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><p>"Do you want to tell me why you left me stranded at the table? I was humiliated."<p>

I couldn't even hear what she was saying, I tried to string the words that were coming out of her mouth together but they still made no sense, all I could see was Amy, what she said, what I said and what wasn't said.

"Okay."

"Okay? Sorry did you just say Okay? First you abandon me at dinner and now you refuse to answer my questions."

I ignored her; she was giving me a migraine. I slid the card down the hotel room door, undressed and fell into bed; it wasn't until Carey had fallen asleep as well that I got out my wallet a picture of Amy, she was sitting on the fence of the Solar blue house looking out to the waves with a flower on one side of her hair that matched her dress. Fly's friend Heath had taken the picture when he visited but when I went down to get a drink in the middle of the night I saw all his processed photos on the table, then I saw the one of Amy and I took it.

I try not to look at it too much, but there was nights in LA and everything was amazing and I would just look at the picture and wonder what she was doing.

I had to sort things with her once and for all, I had to talk to her again and I had to make her talk to me but the chances of her coming back to the restaurant while I'm in the country were extremely slim, I thought she lived hours away from here with her parents but that had obviously changed. I knew Rachel lived with her parents nearby and Corey was in the area and Brooke told me that Mike lived about an hour's commute away.

I didn't know how well my plan would end, but at least I had an idea about how to start.

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><p>"Hello! Is anybody in?" I kept on knocking harder on the oak door that was the entrance to a small two story house. "Anyone? Come on there's a car right there!"<p>

I heard the sound of water and turned to the left to see a friendly old man coming around the side of the house.

"Alright, alright hold your horses, I was watering my petunias."

"Sorry sir, is Rachel in?"

"She will be in any second, you a friend of hers?"

"Yep" I used to be.

"You look familiar what's your name?"

I don't know why I said it but it seemed easier for me to lie about my age than go through the whole Solar Blue/ Blue Water High memory catch up.

"Ah, Ken" Don't even ask how I got that name, I'm not sure I even know myself.

"Right, Ken. Well take a seat on the front step and wait if you want." I smiled and took a seat while he watered his flowers; it was awkward to say the least. He didn't even bother with small talk which made it even worse so I pretended to take a great interest in his letterbox. A blue car came around the corner and sped onto the driveway into the garage, Rachel's dad stepped in front of me towards the car.

"Hey love, you're friend Ken's waiting for you on the front step."

"Who?" she walked around the corner and saw me, her eyes widened as she jerked back to her car as if she wanted to crawl back into it.

"Of course! Ken, Dad do you mind?"

"She wants me to bugger off" her dad smiled to me and I tried to smile back, once he had gone inside It was even more awkward than before.

"So, how are you?"

"Good yeah, I'm on Uni holiday at the moment."

"Right, how's that?"

"Fun, well hard but it's still fun."

I nodded, she didn't need to ask what I had been up to as my life for the past four years had been splayed across magazines and interviews and newspaper articles.

"Have you been surfing since you've been back?"

"Nope, my manager told me this trip was purely promotion only, I've done a few this for the papers this morning and I have one on T.V later tonight. He even kept my board from me."

"Do you want to go for a surf? I have a few spare boards and stuff."

"Yeah" The waves were the only place that wouldn't be awkward; they were the only place where everything didn't have to seem so real.

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><p>"Go easy on me yeah? I'm just a small fry compared to you." She said as we stood on the shoreline, I nodded and we ran in. The sea wasn't producing the best waves but they were familiar like I was home. There was a void between Rachel and I that we couldn't pass unless one of us decided to speak, I had a feeling it would have to be me .After about an hour on the water we went back onto the beach and sat on our towels in silence.<p>

"Why'd you guys stop talking to me? I thought we were friends, I thought we were going to stay friends."

"It was just easier I guess." She said looking down while I looked out.

"Tell me where she is Rach, please". Rachel looked at me her legs cross and she put her head in her hands.

"I-I dunno Eric."

"Please I won't tell her it was you who told me." I pleaded with her jokingly to try and ease the tension.

"I think it would be pretty obvious." She thought for a moment. "I'll tell you where her house is, it goes against my whole friendship with Amy and she may never trust me again but I'll tell you where it is."

"I'm not trying to force you Rach." I told her, she smiled stood up then leant her hand down to help me up

"No one forces me to do anything."


	5. Amy, Five

**Hey, sorry about the late update, this chapter really messed with my head and just when I would think I was cool with it, I would go out and suddenly decide while driving that it needed to change. I'm still not 100% sure I'm happy with it but after three goes I just went with it.  
>Enjoy, Kaia (:<strong>

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><p>"Mum, what's for tea?" Lea asked while drawing pictures on the table of flowers and stick figures that would most likely end up on the fridge with her other prized drawings.<br>"I'm pretty sure you asked that question ten minutes ago." I said putting the spaghetti into the boiling water.

"I hoped it might change" she said grinning at me.

"Hey! There is nothing wrong with spaghetti Bolognese." I said stirring the contents of the fry pan around. "And who taught you how to be so cheeky?"

"Corey told Rachel that he didn't feel like salad and she got angry that he didn't tell her before and said to him did he think it would magically change." She finished with her picture and walked over to the fridge grabbing a magnet and putting it near the bottom.

"Corey ended up eating the salad didn't he?" I asked serving up the dinner and getting out the forks.  
>"Yeah"<p>

"Just like you are going to end up eating this." I said giving her the bowl and sitting opposite her with my own. I looked at her in her pink dressing gown, her hair still damp from the shower and her mouth getting a huge red ring of pasta sauce.

"I'm gonna have to get you a bib soon missy."

"No way Mum, only babies where bibs."

"You're my baby." I said to her in a cooing voice and Lea laughed and got even more sauce around her face.

After dinner I wiped her down then took her to bed and read her a story, I was mid way through _The Very Hungry Caterpillar _when there was a knock at the door.

"Well, now who could that be?" it was only seven at night and it was still quite light outside.

"You can have a flick through the pictures and I'll see who's at the door."She nodded and I left the room.

I unlatched the door and opened it to see the evening sun, and Eric.

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><p>Oh god, oh my god. Shit, how the hell did he find out where I lived? I specifically didn't come to work this weekend so I wouldn't see him.<p>

"What are you doing here?"

"I needed to see you, I just- I gotta know why." He ran his hands through his hair, he always hated confrontation and here he was starting it.

"What are you talking about?"

"Everyone stopped talking to me except for Brooke and no one's giving me straight answers because it all comes back to you."

The secret I kept from him was barely a wall away still awake for that matter.

"Eric can we do this another time?"

"I'm only in the country for two more days Amy."

"Then what's so important, why can't we leave things as they are, you go back to America and I'll stay here."

"Because I can't go back to that! there's these moments in the morning when I wake up and for those mere three maybe four seconds I've forgotten the reasons why I'm unhappy and then I turn over and it hits me because I realise that when everyone thinks you've got everything, nothing is shittier than waking up to a girl that isn't you." He took a deep breath; he seemed surprised at what he said as if he didn't want to give away what he was thinking at all. "Unless, there's someone else?"

Just at that moment I heard a creak from behind me and I wanted to just drop to the floor and pretend that everything that was going to happen would just slow down. Eric heard the step too and looked at my face and misread it as if the person in the house was my 'someone else'. The little hand opened the door wider.

"Mummy what's taking so long?" She looked at me and I smiled back then she looked at Eric whose eyes were wider than I ever thought humanly possible.

"Y-you have a kid?" he didn't look at me when he asked, just at the girl in her pyjamas with damp blonde hair, he finally looked up at me and I stopped smiling my fake smile and let a tear drop down my check and hit my t-shirt leaving a damp, dark circle, that was the moment a look of realisation crossed his eyes.

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><p>"How old is she?" he asked.<p>

"I'm three and three quarters." Lea perked up. He looked up at me with pleading eyes still standing in my front doorway.

"Who's her dad?" he asked though I think he knew he didn't really have to.

"I've never met him but I hope he surfs because I want to surf too!" Lea answered the question again.

"Lea, do you want to watch some T.V? I'll let you have a late night." I said smiling at her again.

"But I'm talking to the man?" she considered her options for a second. "I might watch T.V, bye!" She waved at Eric as he just looked on dumbstruck.

"That's why" he said below a whisper "That's why they didn't talk to me, that's why you never called, why your parents don't talk to you." I just nodded.

"She's nearly four Amy! Did you think I had no right to know who my daughter is? I could have been there for you, with everything- you know I would of."

"That's exactly why I couldn't! You were on the pro circuit; you were doing everything you loved! Forget about me and forget about Lea and everything else, do you like your life?" He couldn't answer me, who wouldn't love his life? We stood around for a few more moments then he began to talk again.

"I can't forget about you or everything else, I've been trying for the past four years but you cut me off from my child, and you say it's for my benefit? How is missing her birth, her first words and first steps- everything, tell me how is that for my benefit?" he was shouting and I just stood there knowing every word was true.

"I can't do this right now Amy, I just can't" He ran his hand through his hair again. "I still love you but this is messing with my head." He took a step back and I grabbed his hand, the first time we had touch in years, since that night in my bed and we both knew it, he looked down at my hand while I talked.  
>"I know I'm not perfect and these last few years I've messed up more than ever but please stay, I can't lose you again. Not yet."<p>

He squeezed my hand back then dropped it. "She thinks she doesn't have a Dad, Lea doesn't know I'm her dad." He was about to walk away when the little blonde who was hiding in the corner of the hallway raised her voice.

"You're my Dad?"


	6. Eric, Six

**Sorry I'm late! Enjoy (:**

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><p>I walked into the hotel room like a zombie. I felt like I was numb from head to toe, as if someone had sucked the life out of me and I was expected to pick up the pieces. Carey sat up from the bed in the darkness of the room and turned on the bedside lamp.<p>

"Where have you been?" she asked groggily. I looked at her and realised she actually meant nothing to me, I probably had friends from when I was five who evoked more emotion from me than what she did.  
>"Out." I replied noncommittally.<p>

"Well I picked up that much." She said, sitting up further on the bed. I sat down and kicked of my shoes.  
>"What did you expect, when you started going out with me?" I asked her, not looking in her direction.<p>

"I don't know but It wasn't this, why did you even ask me to come when all you've done this trip is treat me like shit?" I just sat there on the bed, it felt like years ago that I was on the beach with Rachel catching waves like old times and now hours later I'm suddenly a father to a three year old sitting on a bed with a woman who I don't love who I've just dragged around the other side of the world.

This isn't who I am only I've forgotten how to be myself. We were both silent for a few minutes, with only our breathing for background noise. Carey sat up behind me and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"I always knew that somewhere in the universe my soul mate would be waiting for me and I would be his everything as much as he was mine. And I know that one day I will make a man pine for me like you pine for whoever's in your eyes when you look at me."

"I'm sorry Carey." And I really was that I couldn't be the person she wanted me to be. "Will you be okay?" I asked her.

"Just give me time and I'll get over you." She smiled then lay back down in the bed and turned the light off, I got into bed too and despite her just breaking up with me it wasn't weird at all. When I woke up the next morning with the sun slitting through the curtains Carey's stuff was gone and her side of the bed was made with a note written on the back of a receipt lying on the pillow.

_I hope you find what you're looking for –C._

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><p>I pulled up three hours later in the driveway of my parent's house, the rental car had a GPS and told me that I had arrived at my destination though it didn't need to remind me, I knew this place like the back of my hand. I saw dad tinkering with some fishing rods sitting on a wooden box in the back of the yard.<p>

"To what do I owe the honour of being in the presence of a celebrity?" Dad drawled his words with sarcasm and his smile was wide as he stood up and gave me a hug hitting me hard across my back to show affection I'm assuming.

"Hey Dad, how you been?"

"Nothing changes around here Eric and that includes me." He said sipping a morning beer as I sat on the grass next to him while he continued to re-string his rods. "How have you been? How's the surfing going?"

"I'm good and the surfing's unbelievable, to think I used to go amateur surfing around the corner now I'm with best."

"From what I hear you're becoming one of the best, so why are you in this neck of the woods?"

"I'm doing surfing promotions and advice."

"I'm no good at the promotion stuff but I'll give the advice a shot."

I took a breath unsure where to begin.

"Do you remember Amy?"

"The girl you wouldn't stop talking about on the phone when you went to that school?"

"Yeah, she had a kid."

"Really? She a few months younger than you isn't she?"

"Yeah, she had her kid nearly four years ago."

He took another sip of his beer "People change son, you think you know someone when..."

"-Dad! The kids mine." I cut him off.

His beer spat out his mouth and he started coughing his fingers tightening around the rod. "You knew about this for how long?"

"I just found out yesterday." He began to sip his beer again and continued to pick up the next rod.  
>"Is it a boy or a girl?"<p>

"Girl, her names Lea, she's beautiful." He nodded so I continued. "I don't know what to do Dad."

"Well you don't really have a choice do you? You decided to sleep with her so I'm sure you can decide what to do next."

"You are no help to me whatsoever."

"You're heart will forever be with that child." He said simply, though he was just pissing me off because he may as well be talking Japanese for all the sense it was making to me.

"What if she hates me?"

"Having a child does not make you a father Eric, but if you have never been hated by your child at one point you have never been a parent."

"God Dad you're not making any sense! You're talking a load of bullshit." I said and started walking off towards the house.  
>"Don't forget to tell your mother she's a granny." He said and he sipped his beer again, maybe that was what he tried (and failed) to say to me. As much as he may piss me off and make me want to hate him, your parents just know you love them more than the hate.<p>

* * *

><p>I arrived at Amy's house that afternoon, I knocked on the front door then sat on the front step when I realised no one was home. I only had to wait twenty minutes until are car pulled up and Amy came out with her hair in a bun and a pink top with shorts on, she was amazing and she didn't have to try it was just the way she held herself that made her so memorising.<p>

"Hey" she said and she sat down next to me. I smiled slightly and ran my hands together unsure of what to say first.

"How's Lea?"

"Good, she's at kindy. I finally got her to bed last night after a million questions about you." I smiled and we sat in silence for another few minute.

"Every time I look at you I can't help but wonder why you picked me." I said and she smiled and looked up at the sky.

"You made me happy." I smiled back her and again we sat in silence, but it was nice this time like I wasn't looking for anything to say and she wasn't either.

"What do you want from me Amy?"

"I want you to hug me and then tell me that everything's going to be alright".

So I did.


End file.
